


Acid Oak Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

by Zerrat



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Community: ff_land, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Love Confessions, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/pseuds/Zerrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil has decided that today would be the day that he would tell Rosa of his feelings - he just shouldn't have picked a poisonous bouquet of flowers to give to her while he did so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acid Oak Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

**Author's Note:**

> Set at least six years before canon. Written for chacusha for [this prompt](http://moogle-workshop.livejournal.com/92027.html?thread=603259#t603259): _To celebrate the Game 3 winners, I'd like to request any fanworks (fic, art, icons, etc.) that focus on both a Soldier character and a White Mage character from any game._
> 
> This fic can be read with a Kain/Cecil and a Kain/Rosa skew, as well, so feel free to strap your ship goggles on!

Cecil straightened his finest shirt and smoothed back his short, pale hair anxiously, trying to ignore the amusement that was sure to be on Kain's face. Was it truly possible to hear somebody smiling? Cecil hadn't been so sure of that until this afternoon.

"If you fuss with your hair for much longer, Cecil, you will miss your chance with her," Kain reminded him for perhaps the third time within the past half hour, and Cecil frowned at his reflection in the mirror.

"I understand. I just want things to be perfect. I may only get one shot, after all." Cecil rolled his shoulders uncomfortably before shooting a smile over his shoulder to where Kain sat, straight-faced and grim, on his chamber floors. Kain, who was attempting to reassure Cecil with words that weren't reassuring _at all._ If Cecil did not know better, he could have sworn that Kain was laughing at him from behind that all-too sombre expression. 

Kain had a point, though. Cecil had managed to beg the afternoon off from the King's training, and it would be a shame to waste the rare time off on preening himself in the mirror. 

Ignoring the feeling that his best friend was still subtly mocking his concerns, Cecil nodded to himself. Today was the day that he would finally let Rosa Farrell know of his feelings for her. Cecil's heart did an odd little skip as he thought of her smile, but all things said and done, he could not have been more nervous than if he was about to face down a battalion of angry dwarves alone. 

He checked his hair and the close cut of his shave – Kain had laughed and asked if Cecil had any hair to shave at all, and Cecil had simply blushed fiercely – before turning to where his best friend was sitting and finally feeling satisfied with his preparations. 

"How does it all look?" Cecil asked, wincing as his voice cracked alarmingly on the last word. Kain looked amused, though, as he looked Cecil up and down thoughtfully. 

"You look fit to win the maiden's hand," Kain finally said with a small smile. "But your face would never serve you ill in such things. Just your words and actions."

Cecil frowned at him. "Thank you, Kain. I think. Are you advising a grander gesture than a simple confession?"

Kain was quiet for another long moment. Cecil waited as Kain turned the question in his mind, loath to hurry his best friend but unable to stop fidgeting nervously with the hem of his sleeve. 

"Perhaps something simple, but in this I cannot advise you, Cecil," Kain told him. "This is your task, and you alone must rise to the occasion – or fall like any other suitor," he added with an odd twist to his mouth. Cecil deigned to ignore it as he dusted himself one last time. 

Setting his mind to thinking of a suitably romantic gesture, Cecil smiled as he remembered listening to a group of white mages discussing how one of the soldiers had given a bouquet of flowers to his wife for her birthday. Flowers were simple, romantic, and Cecil remembered seeing some stunning red ones growing on the edge of the Baron forests. The more he thought about it, the more right it felt – he had to give Rosa some flowers. 

His mind made up, Cecil swept down in a courtly bow toward Kain. 

"Thank you, Kain. Your assistance this afternoon has been invaluable." Ignoring the feeling that Kain was rolling his eyes at the thanks, Cecil added, "You're a good friend."

Kain's lips twitched into a small smile. "Do not thank me yet, because you are yet to win Rosa's heart over. But I do wish you luck, whatever the outcome may be."

###

Rosa was seated in the castle gardens when Cecil finally found her, and she looked up in surprise as he rapped his knuckles against the castle wall to announce his presence. She looked a little wearied from her new role as a white mage in-training, and a few locks of her long, blonde hair had worked their way free from her braid. He watched her tuck the stray hair away behind her ear and he chewed his lower lip nervously and tightened his grip on the bouquet in his gloved hands.

Rosa had grown up, and she was no longer simply his childhood friend. Cecil felt it more keenly with every passing day, from the stolen glances across the court's hallways to the training exercises held between the warriors and the mages. 

_Calmly now,_ Cecil told himself, trying to remember to be brave, honourable and not at all like a fifteen-year-old boy terrified at the sight of her smiling at him like that. He stepped forward, his mouth suddenly very dry, and he reached her quickly – probably too quickly, he thought with a spike of alarm, because didn't women like aloof? Too late for that now, what was done was done, and -

"Cecil," Rosa said, and her voice sounded a little breathless as she rose to her feet to meet him half-way. Cecil watched the way her white mage's robes clung to her body, and suddenly the afternoon air felt stifling. Cecil looked determinedly at the grass at Rosa's feet as he swept into a bow that was not nearly so graceful as the one he'd given Kain just an hour prior. Did she notice? Was she smiling at him because she was laughing, or because she was happy to see him? 

"Rosa," Cecil said, trying to keep his voice level as he glanced quickly over to her face and then away again. His cheeks felt hot – why could this never go the way he imagined it? 

"Was there something...?" Rosa asked softly, and Cecil shook his head sharply to snap himself out of his stupor. 

_Kain would be rolling on the floor in a fit of laughs,_ Cecil thought with a small grimace, before smiling at Rosa. 

"I brought you some flowers, if you would accept them," Cecil murmured, holding out the bouquet for her. He'd not done such a terrible job on his own – the stunning red flowers he'd seen in the forests had been perfect when combined with some tiny white ones and some elegant-looking leaves from a nearby tree. 

Rosa accepted the flowers without sparing them so much as a glance, and seemed more preoccupied with Cecil and what had brought him there – he swallowed nervously, trying not to fidget as he clasped his hands behind his back. 

"Rosa, I... I had something I wished to talk with you about," Cecil said, unhappy that his voice had cracked again somewhere in the middle of his words and skewed them hopelessly. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I know that we've known each other for a long time, but lately I have-"

Cecil cut off as Rosa's eyes suddenly went wide. He watched in a stunned silence as her eyes snapped back down to the bouquet of flowers he'd spent so long putting together, and his confusion only grew as a look of horror crossed her face. She dropped them with an oath that made Cecil's ears burn, muttered some sort of vague apology in Cecil's general direction, before hurrying off to the white mage quarters.

Left standing alone in the Baron Castle gardens, Cecil looked down dejectedly at the mangled bouquet of flowers lying in the grass. That had certainly not gone as he'd planned – he'd not even gotten his confession out! Cecil sighed, rubbing his face with his gloved hands and turning his back on the wilting flowers. There seemed to be some sort of strange sap on his fingers, probably from the stems -

Cecil's eyes widened as the skin of his face started to itch and burn. 

_Oh._

###

Cecil sprawled on the bed in his darkened chambers, the curtains drawn shut to block out the afternoon sun and an arm slung miserably over his face. The skin of his face still felt a little raw and was itchy as a Feymarch fog, but that was nothing compared to his bruised ego and wounded pride. It hadn't even been his own words that had laid his chance with Rosa to rest, but the sap from that tree-

There was a firm rap on his door, and Cecil ignored it, hoping that whoever it was would get the message and leave him be for now. Instead, Kain entered the room, closing the door quietly behind him and nudged Cecil's shoulder. 

"I won't ask how it went – there are stories flying about the castle enough to keep a man entertained for days," Kain said without preamble, and Cecil sighed. 

"Acid oak, Kain," Cecil told Kain, moving his arm a little so he could look up at his best friend's face. "I gave her _acid oak_ in the bouquet."

"Then that was quite the misfortune." Kain's voice was mild, and he sounded largely unsurprised by that revelation. Cecil wondered what else he'd heard around the castle, before deciding that he really didn't _want_ to know. "What do you intend to do?"

"Hide here until the red moon crashes down," Cecil said with a small laugh. "I am not sure, yet. I just can't help but think that I've wasted my chance, all because I didn't pay attention to the King when he was talking about what plants to avoid."

Kain made a non-committal noise. "At least you were not a forgettable suitor?"

Cecil laughed, in spite of the rawness of his face and the wounds to his pride. "That is little consolation, my friend."

"Come." Kain rose to his feet, offering Cecil a helping hand. "Spar with me, and forget your troubles for a while. There is naught to be gained from hiding away from the rest of the world in abject misery."

Nodding in agreement, Cecil accepted Kain's hand, and let himself get pulled onto his feet by the bigger boy. He could certainly do with a distraction, and no matter how Kain rolled his eyes, Cecil was glad that he had Kain there to rely on for things like this.

###

Later that night, after Cecil and Kain had beaten one another about the training yards for the remaining hours of daylight, Cecil leaned against the Baron castle parapet. Beneath his gloves it felt like his blisters had blisters, his body ached and Kain had accidentally split his lip, but even so Cecil's mind continued to linger on that afternoon's mistakes with Rosa. His grip tightened momentarily on the worn stone, and his throat ached a little.

Cecil, foolishly or not, had really thought that maybe Rosa had been the _one._ The one to laugh with, cry with, and grow old with. To feel that he'd lost his chance at that future? It was more than just disheartening, it was shattering and Cecil was unsure how he could even look her in the eye without remembering that look of horror in her eyes. He would have to, though, because first and foremost, Rosa had been a friend and no matter what he would be happy for her...

It did not mean that he could not dwell on his mistakes in a quiet moment, though. 

"Cecil?" A quiet voice asked to his right, and it felt like all of Cecil's insides froze up, lurched and then kicked into overdrive in the space of a second. Rosa was standing not too far away, and a part of him delighted in her presence, while the other felt nothing but dread. Cecil's eyes caught on the way her hands were wrapped in fresh bandages – his stomach clenched, had the burns really been so awful that magic would not heal them fully? 

"I – uh," Cecil stammered, suddenly unable to look at her. He began to back away quickly, sweeping into an awkward bow as he went. "I can leave if that would be what you prefer, I am very sorry and I didn't mean to-"

"Cecil." Rosa's voice was firm, and it stayed Cecil's tongue and panicked retreat for a moment. He straightened, looking up at her and feeling nothing but worry and regret now. 

"I'm sorry. About this afternoon." Cecil sighed, leaning against the stone walls again. "I did not realise what I had given you."

"I know. I'm sorry too, for rushing off and making you think that it was you." Rosa's smile became a little wry as she leaned over the low wall beside him. She was gorgeous in the silver moonlight, and sometimes it became a little hard to breathe when he looked at her. "It was just the flowers you gave me, lovely as the gesture was."

Cecil blushed at her praise, though it only made the skin of his face feel more raw and painful. 

"Your face, Cecil. What happened?" Rosa asked, tilting her head as she peered at the light burns and lifting an uncertain hand, as if she wished to examine them closer. 

"An accident with the sap afterwards," Cecil said, shaking his head and smiling. "I'll heal, and it's a good reminder that I know exactly what acid oak looks like, now."

He'd thought he'd actually pulled off slightly-regretful-but-positive quite well, but Rosa simply rolled her eyes at him. What was it with his friends and doing that, today?

"Don't be ridiculous, Cecil. Here, let me-" Rosa cut herself off as she reached up and took his face with cool and gentle hands. Cecil felt as though he might die from the way all the blood in his body rushed to his face, or go deaf from the sheer volume of the blood pounding in his ears. Rosa's touch was cooling and soothing though, and the gentle glow from her fingertips seemed to light up the entire walkway. 

Rosa's breath was a little unsteady afterwards, perhaps from magical exertion, perhaps from something else. 

"At least I didn't heal your mouth over..." she murmured with a sigh, and Cecil didn't want to ask if that had actually been a _real possibility._ He noticed that she hadn't released his face, though, and her thumb brushed lightly over his healed cheek. Without a further word, Rosa leaned in and pressed her lips quickly against his cheek. The touch had been light and almost shy, but as she pulled away Cecil noticed that she was smiling. 

"Good night, Cecil," Rosa told him, blushing a little as Cecil watched her leave him in the quiet stillness under the stars. He really _couldn't_ get the foolish grin off his face, and as he made his way back toward his chambers, Cecil couldn't help but hum a little tune as he went. 

Perhaps he hadn't ruined things with Rosa, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like updates as to current projects or just want to chat, feel free to come visit me on my tumblr: [zerrat](http://zerrat.tumblr.com/) (personal) and [zerratwritesstuff](http://zerratwritesstuff.tumblr.com) (writing)!


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